Experience a vast, open-ended universe filled with an infinite number of adventures. You are the freelancer Edison Trent, an intergalactic jack-of-all-trades. Your mission: whatever you want. Become a smuggler or a ruthless space thug, a naval hero or a trader. Dodge through asteroid fields while piloting elite spacecraft. The action is endless as you make your way through 48 known star systems. Greed, morality, compassion, anger... whatever motivates you, the dynamic universe will respond.

There are very few video games which are said to be the premium amongst premiums. Freelancer is one special game in that category. The massive universe, incredible graphics and story line along with literally free-to-go anywhere kind of game play sets up the pace.

Even if you have played this game for hours, days or years...there's always something in it which will bring you back to play this game more and more; nevertheless the mods just double or triple up the chances of replay-ability of this game. Some of the best known industry standard mods are supported and created for this game.

Even though Digital Anvil is no more and Microsoft kind of not-at-all interested in continuing this franchise for its console (Psst...you can find some videos of now discontinued Freelancer 2 project on youtube) or PC...the elite group of modders have found a way to continue its story line in fan created universe which ofcourse comes into action after implementing hundreds of fan-based comments and suggestions.Be it a single player campaign or the online gameplay, you're bound to enjoy the enthralling experience.

The original storyline created by Microsoft & Digital Anvil was so gripping that it instantaneously created a large fan group of this game. There were very, very few games around the year 2003 which were large in terms of gameplay maps, had astounding around 5-6 + hours of Story-line & with such graphical details.

Edison Trent the lead character of this game become an instant icon amonsgt the players, similar to Capt.Shepherd from Mass Effect Universe. Still the modders create great customizations for the players and the universe which feels just like a newly purchased game everytime a new mod is installed.

At the end we, as the fans of this great game are still waiting for the complete turn over of the universe and announcement of Freelancer 2 !!!! even after around 8 + years have passed by...

I don't know what else to say but this: this game is one of the best games Microsoft Game Studios designed.
While the X series of games actually make a vast believable star system and do everything that this game does (and in some cases are much, *much* bigger than Freelancer can ever hope to be), they miss out on the important concept of balancing travelling time and "shoot those bastards out of space" time. With a vast array of star systems (and one secret system!) and cartloads of ships (the Corsair Titans are the best, take my word for it) this game is brilliant!

Freelancer is an excellent space sim that attempted to fill a very small niche role in an already small audience.

It did so very, very, well. Freelancer has delivered an excellent space combat sim made even better by the ease of modding. With the community developed modding tools we have today, anyone with a great idea can take the Freelancer engine and make an amazing universe.

There are a few black marks on Freelancer, namely scale issues. Cap ships, even in vanilla, can be 1/10th the size of planets. Planets are placed ridiculously close together and distances between stars in binary systems is measured in tens of kilometers.

This is understandable; look at something like X3 which has more believable scales but has to split systems into smaller "sectors".

Only one other downside exists in Freelancer, a lack of end game. Without a dynamic economy, trading gets stale quickly and the entire purpose of the game is upgrading your ship (which you can only own one of). This means end game is very limited.

The single player campaign in the original game is one of the better written stories in any game I've played. That, combined with intuitive controls and loads of options in terms of ships, weapons and, once the story is done, play styles, leaves this as THE open space sim.

The mods make this, like M&B, not one but many games. Each one is lovingly crafted; some are better than others, but each is unique, and gives much replayability to this classic game.

Freelancer has to be one of the greatest space games that I've ever played. It has action, adventure, an amazing story, and loads of awesome ships to fly! The game itself is great, but with the incredible mods that its community has made, this game will live on for quite a while. Out of all the games I've played, this one has some of the greatest mod support I've ever seen. Truly a masterpiece.

The thing I dislike about Freelancer is the combat. It feels more like a arcade tunnel driven shooter than a space dogfight. Combat becomes just an overly obnoxious, repetitive question of, "Do you have enough shield and repair bots in your cargo hold?" And it really kills much of the fun, as enemies become more of an annoyance than any challenge. There aren't a lot of tactics to minimize getting hit. It's almost always a 3 vs 1 or worse. Which guarantees you will be flanked at all times during your dogfight, taking damage. Thus requiring you to just carry max repair and shield bots. And at later stages of game, that is all you are really needing money for. However, everything else about freelancer is pretty fantastic. Sometimes it doesn't always give the best - I am an explorer kind of feel. Unless you stick to the painful and slow to get to jumpholes. Which is another drawback for me. The speed of the ships just doesn't feel right either. And travel outside of designated space lanes can make the game drag. And just get you repeatedly jumped by annoying enemies.
(The best space combat sim and mechanics, of all time, were contained in Tachyon: the Fringe by NovaLogic.)

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